


an extraordinary ordinary day

by loyaulte_me_lie



Category: About Time (2013 Curtis), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Before The Awakening Compliant, Flyboy shenanigans, Gen, M/M, Poe Dameron is Tim Lake, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-12 01:38:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11151459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loyaulte_me_lie/pseuds/loyaulte_me_lie
Summary: or/ there's another reason Poe's the best pilot in the galaxy





	an extraordinary ordinary day

**Author's Note:**

> two part story, otms and awb will be updated soon i promise! basically i just see Poe as Tim from About Time (which is an adorable movie if you haven't already seen it).

Poe will remember the day he turned twenty-one for the rest of his life.

It starts normal, well as normal as any leave day from the Navy, lying in his too-soft bed, listening to the orchestra of birds singing and rustling and squawking in the Force-tree outside his window. The sunshine is burning-bright against his closed eyelids, and he groans and rolls over, burying his face against the pillow and inhaling the scent of soap. It soaks deep into his lungs and he’s just about to drift off to sleep again when there’s a thump on the floor and…

“Wake up, birthday boy, breakfast’s ready!”

He makes a noise that’s not quite human as his father thumps on the floor again, and forces his floppy limbs into motion, pushing himself up and rubbing at his eyes.

“Coming!” he calls, stumbling around for a t-shirt and swearing as he knocks his elbow on the old, splintered doorframe. The stairs protest as he shambles down the stairs, feeling like something has crawled into his skull and died there.

“Happy birthday,” Kes says from behind his newspaper at the kitchen table that never sits quite right on the flagstones, absently pushing a mug of caf and a plate of hotcakes, steam curling gently upwards. After Poe’s done eating, feeling slightly more awake, Kes puts the paper down and steeples his hands under his chin.

“What?”

“I have something to tell you.”

“Okay, I’m sorry for last night, I’m never letting Sula buy me a drink ever again…”

“You’re twenty-one, Poe, you can do what you like. This is…important, I suppose. My father told me on my twenty-first birthday, and now I’m telling you.”

“Fire away.” Poe leans back in his chair comfortably, enjoying the dregs in his mug.

“The men in our family can and have always been able to time travel.”

Poe stares at his father for a second, and then feels the laughter claw up his throat. He forces it back down to save his father’s ego. “Pull the other one, Dad, it’s got bells on it.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Time travel is a physical impossibility, I studied this in school…”

“You need to be somewhere dark. Closets are good, bathrooms will do as well. Close your eyes, clench your fists, and imagine the time that you want to be in. Give it a go.”

“O-kay…”

“Seriously.”

“Okay, fine.” Poe clears his throat. “I’ll do it. But you’re not allowed to laugh when nothing happens.”

“Do something memorable, okay?”

Shaking his head, Poe gets to his feet. “Sure, Dad, okay. See you in a sec.”

He looks over his shoulder as he leaves the kitchen, stone floor freezing against the soles of his feet. Kes is giving him an undecipherable look that sends a thrill of something echoing up his spine.

*

“What the actual _fuck_?” Poe slumps back down into his chair. “I don’t _believe_ this but…”

“Saying I told you so would be immature, wouldn’t it?” Kes lowers the newspaper again and raises an eyebrow. “Where did you go?”

“Graduation party.”

“Do I want to know what you did?”

“Probably not. But…just… _how?_ ”

“No idea. Your grandfather didn’t know either, and neither did his father. You’re taking this better than I did.”

“What did you do?”

“Swore a lot more. It took a long time for your grandfather to convince me to give it a go.”

Poe snorts. “I’m not surprised. But so, I can only go back to moments in my own life, not, hypothetically, going back and kicking Palpatine in the balls?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

The ideas, the possibilities are endless, they’re flooding his synapses, overloading his brain and for a moment he sees white. There’s a buzzing in his ears, deep and insistent, and he forces himself to take several careful breaths.

“What about mucking up the space-time continuum?”

Kes sighs. “I don’t really know. I don’t seem to have done anything too drastic yet, so as long as you’re sensible, it should be fine.”

“Any more advice, or is that just, well, it?”

“Use it well and don’t tell anyone.”

“Gee, thanks Dad, that’s helpful.”

Kes gives him a small, weighted smile that ripples through the room. “I trust you not to do anything stupid. Well, anything too stupid.”

Poe gets up to pour himself another cup of caf from the pot on the stove. ( _what? It’s his birthday and two words: time travel_ ). “Once I’m over the shock, I’ll be appreciating the coolest birthday present ever.”

“Cooler than BB-8?”

Poe chokes on his mouth of caf, bitterness spraying up into his nose and sending him into a coughing fit. He points accusingly at Kes. “I won’t be responsible for my actions if you tell that droid anything of the kind.”

Kes holds up his hands in surrender, getting up out of his chair and grinning. “Don’t you worry, son. You can trust me.”

*

Poe Dameron will always and forever be Shara Bey’s son, and so, the logical thing to do with his new-found power is, of course, to fly. It’s not hard, sneaking off to a darkened corner of the base to close his eyes and clench his fists every evening, somersaulting back through space-time to the cockpit of his X-Wing, swooping and soaring amongst the twinkling branches of the galaxy with his squadron in tight formation around him.

(people hiss and whisper behind their hands as he climbs the ranks with sauntering, careless ease but of course when you fly each mission several times it’s not hard to be the orchestrator of it’s success)

And then…

“Dameron.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you hear what I said?”

“I think I’m still in shock, sir.”

“Well take a moment to get out of it.”

“Are you serious?”

“You’re our best pilot and no commanding officer wants you, so it makes sense, does it not?”

“Yes, of course, sir. Thank you.”

Poe feels like his face could split apart with the effort of keeping it straight. He wants to dance and whoop and holler and maybe go and call his father right away, because finally, finally, he’s done it. The youngest Commander in the New Republic Navy. History has officially been made.

“Here are the packets on your squadron. You’ll have two weeks of training time with them tomorrow, then you’ll be on active service. Any other questions?”

“No, sir.”

“Dismissed.”

*

His new squadron are a dream, and slowly, slowly the times where he sneaks off into a dark corner, shuts his eyes and _falls_ get further and further apart, because when you’ve got three other pilots who are so in tune with you they’re where they need to be nearly before you give the order, there’s no need to re-fly missions because they’re successful the first time over.

“How far do you go back?” he asks his father once, on a rare leave-day, lounging across the sofa with his holopad. Kes sighs and doesn’t turn from the stove.

“You can’t go beyond things you don’t want to change,” he says slowly. There’s a weight to his words. “I don’t go back beyond your birth, for example, because the odds of you being completely different due to one tiny change are too high.”

“Do you go to see Ma?”

“Do you?”

Poe sighs and rests the holopad against his chest. “It hurts too much,” he admits. “I don’t want to go back and then be back here and know she’s not with us.”

“Poe,” Kes does turn around, then, and comes over to run a callused hand over Poe’s hair. “She would be so proud of you, you know that?”

“Yeah,” Poe says, “I hope so.”

*

In every life there are constants, and no matter how many times Poe goes back, he can’t stop the inevitable explosion of Muran’s starfighter, burning fuel painting an inferno against the black vacuum as the Yissira Zyde leaps into hyperspace.

“It’s not your fault, boss,” Karé sits down next to him the fifth time he’s failed.

“Don’t beat yourself up,” she says the seventh time.

“Poe, there was nothing we could have done,” is the ninth and final time.

“I’m going after it,” he tells her. His voice scratches on the way out.

“We’ll come…”

“No, I can’t let you disobey direct orders.”

“Poe…”

“That’s final, Lieutenant Kun.”

After a while, Iolo joins them, and they stay in the hanger, staring at the empty space where Muran’s X-Wing should be.

*

Tracking the Yissira Zyde takes four attempts, and escaping the First Order staging post even longer. When he’s finally done it, safe in hyperspace with fully functioning engines and guns and BB-8 burbling calculations in the droid-socket, he digs his nails into the skin of his wrist.

 _Finally blew up some of those bastards for you, Muran_ he thinks savagely.

He doesn’t let himself dwell on what will happen when he lands.


End file.
